the time went on and he brooded through the still
watches of the afternoon, through the soft stirrings of evening, on into
night again. With the coming of night light breezes rose from the spaces
below to spur his fevered body into something of its wonted vigor. And
the night brought also preparations among the men to journey on. This he
welcomed, even more than the cooling zephyrs.

There was some delay. His master entered upon a dispute with the
horseless man. The voices became excited and rose to vehement heights.
But presently they subsided when Pat himself, anxious to be active,
sounded a note of protest. Yet the argument proved to his benefit.
Instead of mounting him behind his master, the odd man swung up behind
another man on the sorrel. Then he was permitted to move forward, and as
he approached the narrow defile he sounded another nicker, now of
gratification.

The pass dropped almost sheer in places. As he descended, more than once
he was compelled to slide on stiffened legs. In this at first he felt
ecstatic danger thrills. But only at first. Soon he wearied of it, and
he was glad when he struck the bottom, where, after being guided out of
shadow and into broad moonlight, he found himself moving to the west in
a deep canyon. With the other horses he burst into a canter, and
continued at a canter hour after hour, following the winding and
twisting canyon until daylight, with its shadows creeping away before
him, revealed to his tired eyes a stretch of mesa ahead, dotted with
inviting clumps of bunch-grass. Then of his own volition he came to a
stop and fell to grazing. Soon all the horses were standing with mouths
to earth, feeding eagerly.

The men, sitting for a time in quiet conversation, finally dismounted,
laughing now and then, and casting amused glances toward the black
horse.

Soon they mounted again to take the trail. Instead of riding with the
other on the sorrel, the odd man swung up on Pat's back behind his
master. But as Pat no longer suffered from hunger, he complacently
accepted the return of the double load. Then all moved forward. Pat
jogged out of the canyon, turning to the right on the desert, and moved
rapidly north in the shadow of the hills. He held to his stride, and
toward noon, rounding a giant ridge projecting into the desert from the
hills, he saw ahead on his right, perhaps two miles distant across a
basin, the mouth of another canyon. Evidently his master saw it also,
and obv